Putting it Together 2: A Three Column Page

We’re going to again make a page with a calendar in it, but it will not have two fixed-width columns; instead it will have three columns, one of which will have a flexible width. (which is a little more challenging)

I again assume that you will be able to remember the basic structure of an HTML document from this tutorial and as such will dive right into the body of the HTML document.

Step 1: A Basic Page Header

Step 2: The Main Body

This time, our web page is going to have a flexible width so that if the browser window is wider or thinner, the page’s width will adjust.

Nonetheless, we’re again going to add another <div> element, after the ‘PageHeader’, with an id attribute value of ‘PageMain’. We don’t want to give this <div> a ‘width’ CSS property, but we will give it a ‘min-width’ of 600px, and we will again center it in the page.

Step 3: Add the Left Side Bar to the Main Body

This page will have three columns: since this is a calendar, the leftmost column will be a list of links to months.

Inside the ‘PageMain’ division, add another division (<div>) element, and give its id attribute a value of ‘MonthsNavBar’. We will give it a fixed width of 195px, and tell it to float to the left. This means that the content which comes after it will wrap around it to the right.

Give all the hyperlinks in the leftmost nav bar hrefs of ‘#’ appended to the month name:

HTML

<ul>
<li><a href="#January">January</a></li>
<!-- more… -->
</ul>

CSS

#PageMain #MonthsNavBar {
width:195px;
float:left;
}

With the side bar floating to the left, some browsers will collapse the height of the ‘PageMain’ division. To solve this, assign ‘PageMain’ an overflow-y of ‘hidden’ (more on ‘overflow’ some other time…)

CSS

#PageMain {
/* the CSS from before */
overflow-y:hidden;
}

Step 4: Add the Right Side Bar to the Main Body

Next we add a <div> after the ‘MonthsNavBar’ division, and give it an id of ‘CoursesNavBar’; the right side bar will be a list of courses. Like, with the side bar of months, amek all the hyperlinks link to "#" appended to the course name:

HTML

<ul>
<li><a href="#SOEN287">SOEN287</a></li>
<!-- more… -->
</ul>

We will also give this side bar a fixed width of 195px, and tell it to float to the right, so that the content which comes after it will wrap aroud it to the left.

CSS

#PageMain #CoursesNavBar {
width:195px;
float:right;
}

Step 4: The Main Center Column

Now we are ready to create our center column. Create another <div> element after the ‘CoursesNavBar’ div; give it an id of ‘MainContent’.

We don’t want the Main column to wrap around the other columns, and we also want a line between it and the side columns and for it to have a different background color. To achieve all this, assign the left and right margins a value of 200px (a little more than the width of the left and right columns):